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Singularity Games/Development teams
This is a list of development teams in Singularity Games, usually focusing on specific projects. In addition of housing them, Singularity also hosts blogs for them. Early years (2018-2020) On January 1, 2018, Singularity Games acquired some staff and the video game development, animation, visual effects, art and creative production operations of Salovaara & Kukkonen Group. They also acquired Laserium Game Studios in Moscow, Sydney, Toronto, Chicago, Austin, Manchester, Vancouver, Paris, Halifax, Amsterdam, Bangalore, Hamburg, Riverside, Dublin and Annecy, with all of their projects in development or pre-production. They also acquired Laserium Game Studios' pinball and mobile divisions, Game Agent's Los Angeles game development studio, MPS Labs, CedarMaple Australia, Live Interactive's office in Sydney and its studios Adrenium Monsoon (Toronto) and Black Ship Games (London). They also acquired castAR's Salt Lake Ci In March 2018, they acquired and merged Laserium Game Studios' Shanghai and Tokyo studios into their Redwood City studio. In April 2018, the Cheltenham studio acquired staff from Dambuster Studios, Fishlabs, Crytek, Techland, Virtuos, Exient Entertainment, Rockstar Studios, Feral Interactive, Nixxes Software, Chimera Entertainment, Double Eleven, Abstraction Games, CGBot, Rmory, The Imaginarium Studios, Turbulent, voidALPHA, Wyrmbyte, FaceWare Technologies, IllFonic, Wushu Studios, Hyperion Entertainment, Creative Assembly, Splash Damage, Sumo Digital, King Digital Entertainment , Playdemic, TT Fusion and TT Animation. They also hired a few people who worked on Sailfish OS to help with porting, while acquiring Starbreeze UK from Starbreeze Studios, the Warsaw development studio from Ubisoft and staff from Gameloft. The Redwood City studio, in the meantime, acquired staff from King, Massive Black, Mercenary Technology, Gameloft, inXile Entertainment and WB Games, while the New York studio hired staff from OtherSide Entertainment, Harebrained Schemes and King. On April 27, 2018, Singularity Games Cheltenham completed the acquisition of development studios in Chertsey and Vienna from Ubisoft and by 2018, Singularity and its predecessors acquired studios in Valencia, Hyderabad, Helsinki, Guadalarja, Chengdu, Santiago, Bogota, Buenos Aires, Bangkok, New York, Milan, Stockholm, Jogyakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Auckland, New Orleans, Seattle, Tokyo, Hanoi, Da Nang, Shenzen and Madrid from Gameloft, with nine game developers: nSpace, Handheld Games, Shaba Games, RedOctane, Luxoflux, Budcat Creations, Underground Development, the 3DO Company and Edge of Reality. In May 2018, Singularity Games announced to open a satellite studio/temporary development studio in Vancouver, with staff from Bandai Namco, Behaviour Interactive, Backbone Entertainment, Valve Corporation, Digital Eel, Raven Software, Digital Extremes, Virtuos, Capcom, Gearbox Studio Quebec, Super Punch Productions, Rockstar Studios, Piranha Games and Techland; another one in Austin, with staff from Backbone Entertainment, Triptych Games, Gearbox Software, Aspyr Media, Glu Mobile, Amazon Studios and Certain Affinity; and another one in Tokyo, with staff from Nintendo EPD, h.a.n.d., Imagica DigitalScape Bauhaus Entertainment, TOSE Software, Tri-Ace, Tri-Crescendo, Arika, Crafts & Meister, DotGears, XPEC Entertainment, Bandai Namco, Camelot Software Planning, HexaDrive, Sega, Level5, Gameloft, Sparx Animation Studios, Krome Studios & Virtuos , Arzest, Studio Khara, Aniplex, Studio Trigger, Intercept and DiNG, indieszero, DeNA, Mistwalker, Koei Tecmo, ArtPlay, Racjin, Konami and Bandai Namco. These studios were set up to contribute to the development of Mirage, and also hire students from nearby universities (and sometimes select, if they are a great distance from the studios). In June 2018, they acqui-hired Mind Storm Studios (Pakistani game developer), Red Eagle Games (Warsaw/Austin-based game developer), SuperSpicy Studios (development studio in St. Petersburg (Russia) and Cambridge (USA)), Team UltraTurbo (a racing game development team), Snakecore (a localization, porting and game assurance company based in Germany, Japan and Russia ), Origo Games (console game developer), Cloudsauce (a cloud computing company) and Solid Pirate Ninjas (puzzle game developer, now working on casual games as well), all based in California. Their staff was merged into the Redwood City studio shortly afterward, but they kept their brands for their respective teams. They also bought out the studios in Seattle, New York, Emeryville (US), Manila (Philippines), Seoul (South Korea), Leeds and Chertsey (UK) from an undisclosed game developer, with 70 employees from their London studio, 275 employees from their Los Angeles studio (now employing 95) and all employees from their Montreal studio. They also bought out the London studio and its remaining employees to merge into their Cheltenham studio. It also acquired their Operation Bigworld IP. The developer in question was later revealed as Sam Garcia Productions. The employees and studios were merged into Team Smash Fight & Co later on. They also acqui-hired (former) employees of Activision (e.g. from Luxoflux, 7 Studios), Microsoft Studios (e.g. Rare (like Chris Seavor and Grant Kirkhope), Carbonated Games, Team Dakota and BigPark), Zynga (e.g. NaturalMotion, Zynga with Friends studio), and Team Ico + Project Siren/Team Gravity; some employees from Liquid Development, Gl33k, Autodesk, RAD Game Tools, OC3 Entertainment, Audiokinetic, Firelight Technologies, Havok, Wargaming.net, GameInsight, Zynga, Zenimax (from studios such as Arkane and id), Carbine Studios; all former employees of Engine Interactive BV, KMM Games/Team Bondi; all employees of Bluepoint Games, Monster Games, Next Level Games, Retro Studios, Carbine Studios, Tantalus Media, Riot Games, PlatinumGames, Fatshark, Stunlock Studios, Left Field Productions, War Drum Studios, High Voltage Software, Nexon, Game Freak, Armature Studio, Masthead Studios, Iron Galaxy Studios, BlitWorks, Yingpei Games and Force Field; all 15 employees from Babaroga, a Chicago-based studio; and independent developers PadogaWest Games and Headcannon; and former employees of Ensemble Studios and Kojima Productions/Konami Los Angeles; as remote part-time employees. They also hired developers of such mods as Project M and Newer Super Mario Bros Wii, former employees of Wargaming Seattle, and composers Graeme Norgate, Steve Burke, Robin Beanland, David Doak and Tomoki Miyoshi. In July 2018, Singularity Games merged their New York, Austin, Vancouver and Tokyo studios into the Redwood City studios, after completing work on Mirage. Also, staff was moved from the Cheltenham studio to Redwood City studio once again; this time it was over 99% of the staff, leaving only 5 game developers. In August 2018, Singularity Games established a label; Psyclapse, where they'll released remakes of classic games. They will release two games through the label, however the games are yet to be announced. Also in August 2018, Lonestar Studios hired employees from Camelot Software Planning, Good-Feel, Grezzo, Arzest, Asobism, Grounding Inc, KeysFactory, Monster Games, Omiya Soft, ParityBit, Prope, Q-Games, Red Entertainment, Skip Ltd, Syn Sophia, Treasure Co Ltd, Vanpool, rangeBox, ritterz, SmartPoint, Smart Technology Inc, ORCA Inc, Cattle Call, Fruit Seal, Gotoron, Agni-Flare, Brushup Co Ltd, Smile Technology United, Creek & River, Leverages Inc, Pole to Win Co Ltd, Digital Hearts Co Ltd, Adecco Ltd, E-Smile Co Ltd, Tribe Co Ltd, Shantery Co Ltd, jackalope Digital Factory, Black Bandit Q Limted, QBIST, Opus Studios, Katsugekiza Inc, Lancrase, Miracle Arts, Paon, Alquimista, Y'sk, Bits Laboratory, Idea Pocket, Imageopoch, Runtime Inc, Nisshinken, Japan Art Media, Toylogic and Ganbarion. They also hired most of the development teams behind Super Smash Bros Melee, Brawl and for Nintendo 3DS/for Wii U installments. In October 2018, Team Smash Fight & Co. hired staff from Laserium Game Studios Berlin and Montreal, specifically staff from all areas except programming and art. The art staff were consolidated into Lonestar Studios and then-unnamed development team referred to as "Sector 4". Around the same time, they acquired Live Interactive, a Los Angeles-based studio, with CedarMaple Games (based in Dublin), GBC Games, GAC Team, Cannon Interactive UK and all staff of Roadshow Interactive (a joint venture between LGS and Village Roadshow). As the deal did not include the programming staff of the Berlin and Montreal studios; the staff in Montreal soon were hired by Eidos Montreal, EA/Motive and WB Games, while the staff in Berlin were hired by Epic Games. In February 2019, the "Sector 4" hired ex-employees from Havok, Wargaming, Gamebryo, SpeedTree and Autodesk. Also in February, Singularity Games acquired the Autodesk Gameware products and patents. Redwood City Team Smash Fight & Co On August 2018, Singularity Games announced to merge Origo Games, Iris Force, Omixron, Mind Storm Studios, Cloudsauce, Snakecore, Solid Pirate Ninjas, Adrenium Monsoon, Team UltraTurbo, Virtual Arcade Men and MPS Labs with some of it's acqui-hired employees into a new development team, which eventually became Team Smash Fight & Co. While the team will mainly work on the Smash Fight franchise, which is why the team is called that, it will also develop games unrelated to Smash Fight and also work with and support external and independent developers. The team is led by Daniel Pecker, brother of SuperSpicy founder and Google employee Robert Pecker. It's the largest development team in the studio. The Outcats In April 29, 2019, Singularity Games merged Mars Dedicated Unit, Sector 4, Singularity Engine Development Team, Awero Studio, SuperSpicy Studios with 2/3 of Team Miiow and the "extra staff and less performing personnel" of Team Smash Fight & Co, Lonestar Studios and Red Eagle Games; to form The Outcats. Despite the development group continuing its projects as usual, the group was created for a review process on most of its employees. It was estimated to lay off 20,325 employees by the end of the process, leaving only 900 "best-performing" employees. Due to the layoffs, most of the campus was left unoccupied, until Rabbit Special Effects moved in. Their upcoming projects include an unnamed strategy game, the sequel to Moving Mountains, the Phantasm and Singularity Engine game engines and numerous unannounced multi-platform projects. Lonestar Studios Lonestar Studios was founded around the same time as Mars Dedicated Unit, focusing on overseeing remakes of Laserium Game Studios titles and developing video games for a younger demographic, kids and teens. The group consists of the developers from temporary development groups, codenamed Group 2, Group 8 and Group 9. It also houses the developers from Group 1, Group 5 and Group 10 not working in the Mars Dedicated Unit. Most of their staff are of Asian origin, most from Mainland China, South Korea and Japan. Some of the unit comprised of ex-Marigul Management and ex-Artoon developers. Red Eagle Games Red Eagle Games (formerly Red Eagle Games Sp z.o.o.) was a Polish video game developer with headquarters located in Warsaw, Poland, founded in 1991. It also used to have an office in Austin, Texas, until it was merged into the Polish office. It wound up in liquidation in 2007, but in 2015, it was brought back by Nordic Games GmbH and was run as its subsidiary before being bought out by Singularity Games. It was temporarily known as Group 6. Like in it's original run, it will mainly work on the Super Gun Blast franchise. Games they developed include Super Gun Blast. Singularity Animation Team Miiow Samantha Shertick created and currently produces an interactive webcomic The Time-Travelling Cat with many people including storyboard artists "Kaz", Demi Christine "DC" Young, Meijer van Wouters, and Wendy Brown, musician Jake Wrzesiński, Jamie Shertick, and other people, like writer/comedian Dan Aykyord, with much more. The crew consisted mostly of females, but there were also around 50 males. The series stars a male cat called Zach (taken from Jamie Shertick's middle name), and his owner Brenda (named after Brenda Messerli, who is Samantha's wife, who also works as a musician for the webcomic), as they go on a huge time-travelling adventure, spanning across 8,000 pages, divided into 120 episodes, as of January 2017. The entire crew was hired to work at Jamie Shertick Productions in January 2018. They work under the "Team Miiow" moniker. In May 2018, he sold JSP's intellectual properties (including The Time-Travelling Cat IP) and the team responsible, Team Miiow, to Singularity Games. Team Miiow then became a sub-unit of Singularity Animation. Singularity Comics Singularity Comics was established in August 2018, with help of 12-Gauge Comics. More coming soon. Former teams Redmond Singularity Games ran a secret studio in Redmond until August 2018. The studio was founded by Laserium Game Studios, after acquisition of Robomodo, some employees of Disruptive Games, and around thirteen ex-Microsoft studios: * (FUN)ction Studios, which developed Kinect technology for Xbox games and worked as a technology incubator **Np Games, responsible for indie games * Kids and Lifestyle Entertainment, which developed educational and sports games * Team Dakota, which developed Project Spark * Declusive Games, which worked on strategy games * Skybox Studios, which worked on sports titles * State of the Art, which worked on HoloLens titles and cybersecurity related projects * FIT, which worked on HoloLens version of Minecraft * Platform Next Studios * MGS Family and MGS Mobile * Connected Experiences, working on cloud services * Playful Learning, working on family titles In August 2018, the Redmond studio was merged into Team Smash Fight & Co. Tokyo Singularity Games Tokyo Animation (2018) Around early 2018, Singularity Games acquired Dan Wicker's anime studio Denime KK, which would later be turned into the Tokyo satellite studio for animation, and later on, game development. Austin Vancouver Redwood City Team UltraTurbo Cloudsauce Origo Games Virtual Arcade Men The team specialized in developing minigames and "80s arcade-ish" video games to be played inside Singularity Games' projects. This team only exists as a temporary unit for when games need to include easter eggs (in this case, arcade cabinets) in order to make the gameplay more fun. They aren't signed to develop any original games outside of the Singularity Game Jam. Snakecore Solid Pirate Ninjas Mind Storm Studios Adrenium Monsoon MPS Labs Iris Force This team specializes in original handheld games. Omixron This team specializes in free-to-play games. RedOctane On August 2018, Singularity Games established RedOctane, the team that focuses on arcade games and hardware development. In December, it was merged to form Mars Dedicated Unit. Phantasm Technology Group After the release of Mirage, the engine was announced to have continued development within Singularity Games' new team Phantasm Technology Group. They developed the engine with Starbreeze Studios and Ubisoft. The engine is planned to be available for the public after the release of Mirage 2. In December 2018, after acquiring co-developers from Starbreeze and Ubisoft, the group was merged into Mars Dedicated Unit. Black Ship Games In December 2018, the group was merged into Mars Dedicated Unit. Awero Studio This team developed Moving Mountains, a JRPG-like adventure game. The team was led by Airi Suzume. In April 2019, the team was merged into The Outcats. SuperSpicy Studios SuperSpicy Studios Ltd. was the mobile application development team. It was founded in 2006, by two former MIT students Daniel Garcia and Robert Pecker, who both studied game design and social sciences. The studio focused on making casual and multiplayer games for mobile platforms, like Android, iOS, Blackberry, Windows Phone and Symbian. In 2015, Robert Pecker departured from SuperSpicy to work for Google. In March 2015, they announced to collaborate with Finji to create games exclusively for PlayStation 4, Xbox Live, Nintendo eShop, iOS, Android and PlayStation Vita. The team consisted of 45 developers. The only game published independently was Sarinu, for Blackberry, Symbian, Bada, webOS, Tizen, MeeGo family, Windows Phones and Linux. In April 2019, the team was merged into The Outcats. Singularity Engine Development Team Mars Dedicated Unit Mars Dedicated Unit's founding started in June 2018, after Singularity Games joined The Mars Project, a consortium participating in the development and manufacturing of Mars. It's primary focus was the development and co-production of video game software and software applications for Mars, in cooperation with other developers. They also housed an experimental development team for internal system applications and general interface development; an auxiliary program unit and a debugging team; and another development team for games created to appeal to a broader audience than the traditional gamer. The group typically had more than one project simultaneously in production, with emphasis on maintaining numerous video game series, most of them yet to be announced. They also were responsible for software development kits developed in co-operation with The Mars Project and ODIMG Technologies; additional working on the design and additional hardware for Laserium Mars; and their Phantasm game engine. The unit was preceded by temporary development groups, codenamed Group 3, Group 4, Group 7, Group 11, Group 12 and Group 13. They also house almost all of the developers from Group 1 and some from Group 5 and Group 10. In April 2019, Mars Dedicated Unit was merged into The Outcats. Sector 4 In January 2019, Singularity Games announced to move staff from within Team Smash Fight & Co, specifically from: *the PC and handheld console porting teams *"the integrated development tools team" and technical staff, from lighting programmers to AI developers *"the online team" *the localization and quality assurance teams They also acquired 20% each of staff from Mars Dedicated Unit, Singularity Engine Development Team, Awero Studio and SuperSpicy Studios. It will join Team Smash Fight & Co, Lonestar Studios and Mars Dedicated Unit as another main development team within Singularity Games. In March 2019, the name was announced as Sector 4. It will work as "the B-team for Team Smash Fight & Co", for porting, developing tools and technology for online and single-player games, and localizing. In April 2019, the team was merged into The Outcats. Cheltenham